The Matthew Douglas Effect

The Matthew Effect in Science
Robert K. Merton

character structure and an acquired set of high standards often lead these outstanding scientists to discriminate between work that is worth publishing and that which, in their candid judgment, is best left unpublished though it could easily find its way into print. The laureates and other scientists of stature often report scrapping research papers that simply did not measure up to their own demanding standards or to those of their colleagues. ...a referee’s incisive report on a manuscript sent to a journal of physics asserts a relevant consequence of a scientist’s failure to exercise rigorous judgment in deciding whether to publish or not to publish: “If C——— would write fewer papers, more people would read them.” Outstanding scientists tend to develop an immunity to insanabile scribendi cacoethes (the itch to publish). Since they prefer their published work to be significant and fruitful rather than merely extensive, their contributions are apt to matter. This in turn reinforces the expectations of their fellow scientists that what these eminent scientists publish (at least during their most productive period) will be worth close attention. Once again this makes for operation of the Matthew effect, as scientists focus on the output of men whose outstanding positions in science have been socially validated by judgments of the average quality of their past work. And the more closely the other scientists attend to this work, the more they are likely to learn from it and the more discriminating their response is apt to be.

Indeed, if D—— D———— would put out fewer records, I would listen to more of them.